Why I Am Pagan

Patheos is hosting a Blogger Challenge, asking writers to explain their religious choices in 200 words or less. My contribution:

I have dwelt in the presence of the Most High all the days of my life. Raised Catholic, in my teens my family become Pentecostal or “Charismatic.” Much to my surprise, I discovered they were not worshiping the All and Whole of Being, but some One else from Whom it is possible to be separate. Called to serve the Utmost, I sought practice and experience and in time, became Pagan, the religion that arose in the Renaissance from the rediscovered shards of the ancient world. Ours is the Via Deorum, the Way of the Gods, the way of coming to know and co-operate with the fundamental structures of existence that we can experience as personalities or as forces. Entwined with the rise of science and Enlightenment values, my spirituality has no conflict with modernity. With open eyes, we learn from all cultures and build a path of immediate experience of the Divine. I live in a Universe entirely alive and ensouled and with whom I partner for our mutual success. Everything I touch is the Divine. Neither One nor Many, I meet innumerable beings: plant, animal, human, Demon, Angel, and God, and know them to be my family.